I waited for 6 months to invest in this particular bit of gear while training my rescued Siberian Husky on other equipment— bikejoring, scooter-joring, regular leash, etc. I regularly use a Neewa sled dog harness and a bungee racing line for our walks. I see now that I should NOT have hesitated on the hands free option because having it is a quality of life enhancement for our whole family.
Truly, the only reason I docked one star short of 5 is that the attached Fanny pack storage pocket is *just* short of being the right size to hold my phone plus a supply of poop bags and still let my fat fingers in to maneuver between them. Give me the option to make that dock a fraction of a star rather than a whole star, and I would! Which is to say, other dog owners may have no problem with this; the combination of MY guy’s enthusiasm for GO-GO-GO and the dimensions of MY particular phone/case + the variety of poop bag options that *I* tend to cram in that pocket (roll of store-bought bags when I’ve got them, reused plastic grocery bags when I don’t) may be fairly unique to me and I don’t want to be unfair to the product. It all fits, just very precisely. It just so happens that pausing to rearrange/rejigger after a poop stop, a text/phone call, or, say, a map check while on a hike is frustrating to my boy, and the combo of arguing with both an inanimate object and my companion is (minimally) frustrating to me.
Separately, while it may be user error on my part, our family could use a slightly more adjustable (I.e., less fussy) waist circumference belt adjustment mechanism for those times when we are on long group hikes and whoever has been walking the dog is ready to trade. Not a huge thing at all, utterly worth the price of admission. Just a note for updated versions! Love Neewa!